Arrow: Season 1

So I've gone about the entire year, asking the question, is Arrow a good show? No, literally, I started Arrow back in December of last year and I just finished it like 2 days ago. So I must ask myself, is Arrow Season 1 good?

In case you don't know, Arrow is a television series focusing on the character of the DC universe of The Green Arrow, or Oliver Queen. 

The show starts off with Oliver Queen, a rich playboy, on a deserted island, being rescued. He's been on this island for 5 years and when he returns to his life of wealth and luxury, in secret, he dawns the green hood and becomes a vigilant with the mission of bringing a list of names to justice as per the dying wish of his father, who left a dark secret in their home city of Starling City. 

There's a cast of characters that interact with Oliver, some help him, others don't know his secret,

others are unknowingly working against him.

You've got Oliver Queen (played by Stephen Amell) who was once a spoiled brat, to this tactical, mature, vigilante.

You've got his family, his disturbed sister Thea (played by Willa Holland) his mother with a secret (played by Susanna Thompson) his step father who was his father's best friend (played by Colin Salmon)

Then you've got his friends, his former girlfriend, Laurel, who he cheated on with her sister (played by Katie Cassidy) She is now a lawyer helping the unfortunate in Starling City. His best friend Tommy,(played by Colin Donnel) who can't quite reach his friend who he lost for five years. And his body guard, John Diggle, (played by David Ramsey) who soon figures out Oliver's dark secret and helps him.

Then you've got the police, mainly Paul Blackthorne who plays the father of Laurel, Oliver's ex girlfriend. He soon becomes obsessed with figuring out the identity of The Hood and taking him down.

That's a real quick run down of the characters, and there are more, more that I will talk about of course. But you can get a lot of the premise information and my initial thoughts in my pilot review. 

Now I won't harp on this too much because I've done this rant too many times, but I must mention that this show airs on The CW.

I don't take The CW seriously.

I've talked about it multiple times, in my pilot of Arrow review, in my DC TV review. I don't want to beat a dead horse with this.

The short rant is, hot people does not equal quality acting. Just because someone looks like they could be a model, does not mean that they can act. But that seems to be the formula for this show.

Now I must call myself out because you could say, "Connor, if you don't like the CW why do you watch Arrow or other shows on it?" And you are right. In fact one of my next reviews is going to be on the pilot of Vampire Diaries, a CW show. Am I a hypocrite for criticizing shows on a channel and then continuing to watch more shows on that channel? Maybe. I'll talk about why I'm doing Vampire Diaries, but I just want to point this out because it is a huge problem with the show.

I will concede that Arrow is not your typical CW show. It does things sort of differently and probably is the best show on the network... but it still has that CW stink to it.

And that CW stink combined with all the tropes and overused cliches of every superhero and comic book film ever made, make for something that I have a hard time putting my seal of approval on.

But let's talk about the good things. On face value, the people in this show are beautiful. The women are gorgeous, the men have those spray on abs that look phenomenal, the people look good.

Can they act? Well I'm talking good things right now.

But seriously, one of the top things of this show is the action.

Honestly, this show has some of the best action sequences and choreography that I've ever seen. Its even better than some of the feature length movies that have come out recently. I'm not just talking comic book movies, I'm talking action movies in general. The action is fast paced and actually really well done... so... good job Arrow.

I do have to say that that is one of the main things that made me come back to this show. Not only was it well done, the action was fun. Those were the parts where the show was entertaining and didn't drag. Unfortunately, the action is so concise and so well done that its done very quickly and often goes right back to the stuff I have the problem with.

Now story.

There's an overarching conflict in the show, that Oliver Queen is working to right the wrongs of his father and his family and clean up Starling City of all the corruption in it. The show is pretty episodic, he goes after a bad guy, but it takes an hour to do so, in the middle there's a personal problem, like his friends or family are angry at him or something like that and that's where the show slows down and gets into its CW funk.

I get that you have to include that slow stuff and every television show has slow moments to develop characters. But Arrow does it in that CW fashion that drives me nuts. Its the petty teen romance bullshit that everyone claims is gone from Arrow and that's why its different, but no its there, its just overshadowed by the great action and a plot they took from Batman Begins. Its still there, its still very prevalent, and I think it contributed to the fact it took me a full year to watch this show.

The reason I say this is because despite the fact that it took me a year to watch this show, there's not really episodes that really stand out to me in the first season. Its really just a blur of action sequences, stuff on the island (I'll get to that in a little bit) and bullshit romances that don't end up going anywhere because you know, from the beginning, that Oliver is going to end up with Laurel because she's the only other main cast female and its the biggest cliche in comic book history. The only episodes I really remember from the show is the episodes with The Huntress.

Why? She was super hot. But also there were interesting parts to that storyline. I can't comment enough on what was good about it but there was something about that storyline that was interesting to me and made a mark. Everything else was either too episodic or not memorable enough because I can't remember it.

Now as far as characters go, they are CW characters. Pretty and a little hollow. Stephen Amell is in no way a horrible horrible actor, but I don't see him doing anything outside of the CW. Neither do I see that with any of the characters that are important. The only characters I really enjoyed and the only actors I really enjoyed seeing, are actors that I've seen in other things. Colin Salmons, Paul Blackthorne, John Barrowman.

BY THE WAY.

John Barrowman is by far the best part of this show.

I watched John Barrowman in Doctor Who and Torchwood and his character is just vastly different in this and yet he's just a pleasure to watch. He's entertaining, he's cunning, and he makes for a great character. It just shows that Arrow has the ability to pick good people and yet somewhat falls short for me.

And then you get to the island bits.

Arrow does this thing where they have flashbacks to Oliver's time on the island. Usually it ties into what is going on in Starling City, but it mainly shows Oliver's development on the island and how he becomes what he is today.

I know some people might disagree, but I did not care for the flashbacks to the island.

I get it, Oliver went through a transformation, he's not the immature playboy who was cheating on his girlfriend with her sister he was before. I don't need multiple episodes showing a kind of boring plot with a character I don't like. I don't like old Oliver. Old Oliver I wish would get shot in the face.

And I get it, you gotta introduce Slade Wilson and there's more to what happened on the island than you think, but to me, the island bits were boring. Were they better than teeny bopper romance bullshit, yes, but in the end, they had the same CW stink to them. I don't care if Oliver had a slight thing for that Asian guys daughter, its boring, she's boring and I don't care about immature Oliver.

Now I think its necessary and interesting to show that transformation, but does it need to be in multiple flashbacks over the course of an entire season? No. I think what they should have done is have one episode dedicated to showing Oliver on the island. Or two episodes, I don't know. But have a full episode or two showing the transformation, having a little bit of a plot going on there, but focusing on character development in the here and now, not then when we know the end result.

Also, the island just seemed really plot convenient. Oliver, Slade and whatsherface were safe from the bad guys and couldn't be found until, oh wait they can be found now. It got a little boring for me and I wasn't a big fan.

The last bad thing I'll say about the show is this...

JUST BECAUSE YOU PUT GLASSES ON A HOT CHICK DOES NOT MAKE HER A NERD!

That's all. Felicity annoyed me. The show was insulting my intelligence by trying to make this obviously very attractive woman "tech savy" by just putting a pair of glasses on her. Nothing else. She's a little quirky sure, but she's still just a hot chick.

And that really sums up the main problem I have with this show. The main reason I can't easily say, you should watch Arrow, its really good. Because if this problem was gone, I would be telling you that. I would be saying you should watch Arrow cause its a new take on the superhero role in TV. The main reason I can't say that is, its on the CW.

I can't speak for shows like Gotham or Constantine or any other superhero show because there aren't that many. (I swear I'm going to start Agents of Shield soon, its on Netflix, I promise). When I was writing this I was about to say, maybe I'm just not a fan of Superhero shows, and then I watched the pilot of Vampire Diaries, and I realized its the CW, not the show. Maybe when I finally watch another superhero show, I'll say something different. Maybe I still won't like Superhero TV shows, but Arrow suffers from the problem that it is a CW television show.

Superficial characters, superficial story, covered up with the fad of the time. It was vampires in 2009, now its superheroes. Those clever but horrible horrible people.

I've heard great things about the second season... I'm not incredibly sure on whether or not I'm going to watch it.

I know I need a break from feeling obligated to watch Arrow because I want to know what everyone is raving about... then again everyone is raving about the second season.

We'll see. The show is passable enough to sucker me into giving the second season a chance, but for now, I'll say that Arrow is probably better than most shows on the CW, but that doesn't mean much... its still on the CW. It has the making of a really good show but its got that stink that just keeps me at arms length. I hate to be someone who looks down on shows like Arrow just because they're on the CW, but there's a big stigma with that channel and I can't stand it.

But those are my thoughts on the first season of Arrow. What do you think? Am I totally off? Am I too biased by the network its on. Let me know. Comment and Discuss Below!

I'll leave you with this. Honestly, I couldn't find anything to put up here, so I thought Arrow, Arrow the knee? Enjoy!